How to see New York City like a Ghostbuster

Sign up to Simon Calder’s free journey e mail for knowledgeable recommendation and money-saving reductions

Get Simon Calder’s Travel e mail

Tright here was one film I used to be glued to as a (mildly terrified) 10-year-old: Ghostbusters. My dusty outdated VHS cassette – a ‘90s re-release of Ghostbusters I and II together – was played to death so much that it jumped about on my chunky CRT TV set more than I did when Dana Barratt discovered Zuul in her refrigerator. I still rue the day that tape was accidentally recorded over.

At that age I never thought I’d be working round New York City in my early thirties on a tour of Ghostbusters filming areas, not to mention amongst a group together with a super-fan dressed as Egon Spengler – full with beige jumpsuit, inflatable proton pack and toy neutrona wand. But there I used to be, prancing up the steps outdoors the New York Public Library, the place Alice the librarian was the unlucky first individual to encounter a ghost. It was right here the Ghostbusters have been born.

“As adults we probably look back now and laugh at scenes like the ghost in the library, but if you ever saw the film as a child it really was terrifying,” says On Location Tours information Chris Trieber, a life-long Ghostbusters fan and pioneer of a new bus tour to mark a trio of ghost-busting milestones.

This 12 months is certainly an necessary one for the franchise and followers alike, as not solely does the unique movie flip 40 in the identical 12 months because the follow-up turns 35, its newest launch, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, is on the horizon. There’s been a lot demand for Ghostbusters areas on their different set-jetting excursions that Triebel begged his bosses to let him run this one.

“In the six-and-a-half years I’ve been running general TV and movie location tours across New York City, there’s always one location people want to see the most,” says Triebel, holding on to a secret for afterward. I’ve an inkling. But first, our tour begins at Tavern on the Green – the place Louis Tully (performed by Rick Moranis) was chased by the demonic hellhound and bangs on the home windows for assist. Little did he understand it’s a restaurant of nonchalant New York diners.

Read extra on US journey:

Within 30 seconds of getting on the bus we loop round Columbus Circle, notorious with the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man within the first film. “This is where a seemingly gigantic marshmallow man destroys everything in his wake and steps on the Holy Trinity Lutheran Church,” says Triebel. “This scene was filmed between here and a giant soundstage in Los Angeles. They filmed people in the street, but the wizardry of director Ivan Reitman was that he weaved the scene between here and a green screen in Burbank and you had no idea.”

From Taxi Driver to Breakfast at Tiffany’s, the world’s favorite films have been shot in NYC. And whether or not it’s for a pastrami sandwich at Katz’s Delicatessen, as seen in When Harry Met Sally, or to comply with within the footsteps of Luca Brasi in The Godfather when he walks down the Hotel Edison hall to meet Virgil Sollozzo, folks love nothing greater than visiting this large manufacturing set of a metropolis. Waking up at Virgin Hotels New York to a superb Manhattan skyline view, and being strolling distance from filming websites like the New York Public Library, additionally provides to a set-jetting journey.

But it’s on excursions the place you actually get underneath the pores and skin of a film. We cross the Rockefeller Center, the place I’m instructed a actual safety guard was chasing the Ghostbusters away as they didn’t even have a allow to movie. Most folks in avenue photographs aren’t actors both. Here, the world-famous Saturday Night Live has been filmed inside NBC Studios since 1975 and, poignantly, is the place Dan Ackroyd and Bill Murray acquired their breaks. “Aykroyd said when they were at SNL, they invented ‘pizza frisbee’,” says Triebel.

“As they’d be writing until 3am they were always exhausted,” he continues. “Plus it was the ‘70s, so their cocaine had probably run out by then. In winter they’d order pizza from a 24-hour delivery place and put it out on the windowsill to freeze solid, with the aim of trying to shatter it on a building opposite. Whoever threw it the furthest would win.”

It was such adolescent camaraderie that will finally encourage Dan Aykroyd (Raymond Stantz) to group up with Harold Ramis (Egon Spengler) and write Ghostbusters. “Without those flying frozen pizzas would we even have Ghostbusters today? Who knows,” says Triebel.

Sites like the Lincoln Center additionally characteristic within the first Ghostbusters, the place Peter Venkman and Dana Barratt met for the primary time. Barratt labored as a cellist within the Center’s orchestra. “This was actually the only scene in the entire film that had to be dubbed with audio, as the fountain is too loud,” Triebel provides, as we cross by.

We additionally drive down a stretch of Fifth Avenue which options within the opening of the brand new film, with Ecto-1 streaking previous Roma Pizza and Banana Republic. “They had to close Fifth on a Saturday to film this,” says Triebel.

On Broadway we spot Venkman’s Ghostbusters II residence, earlier than passing by the East Village to see the unique location of Ray’s Occult Books, now a restaurant. Then, our two-hour whizz round New York City ends the place any respectable Ghostbusters tour ought to: the Ghostbusters Firehouse, or Hook and Ladder 8, a real-life working NYFD station in Tribeca.

“Hey, does this pole still work?!” quips one (grownup) tour visitor, mimicking an excitable Ray Stantz when recognizing the fireman’s pole. It appears I’m not the one one unlocking my interior childhood.

Travel necessities

How to get there

Norse Atlantic operates every day flights between London Gatwick and New York JFK, rising to double every day flights through the summer time peak season. Premium seats out there from £779 return.

How to do it

A Private Ghostbusters Sites tour with On Location Tours prices £105pp; minimal three folks.

Visit high NYC sights as seen in films, together with the Rockefeller Center (Top of the Rock Observation Deck) and the Empire State Building, and save 40% on listed costs with a New York CityPASS. An grownup cross prices £114.

Tavern on the Green, as seen in movies like Ghostbusters, Wall Street and Mr Popper’s Penguins, is open for lunch, dinner and weekend brunch.

For extra data on Ghostbusters and New York City, go to nyctourism.com

Where to keep

To stay within the coronary heart of all of it and really feel like you’re on a film set, keep at Virgin Hotels New York.

Read extra on the finest motels in New York